Our Foundational Values

The Charter Academy was founded to prepare students for success in post-high school life, regardless of their choice of occupation. Our mission statement is clear: "rigorous, content-rich college preparatory education for any students who are willing to accept the challenge." The following list represents the non-negotiable core values of the Academy, which are necessary for achieving our mission. Compromising these values will weaken the institution

Unlike ordinary public schools, the Academy is a school students and parents choose to attend. This choice involves an acceptance of the school mission and goals and an agreement to support them.

Statement of Philosophy from our Founder, Dr. William Proser

Recognized by the State Board of Education as an Accredited School, the Coeur d'Alene Charter Academy opened for students in grades 7 through 10 in August 1999. As stated in the Academy's charter, Grade 11 was added in 2000-2001 and grade 12 was added in 2001-2002. Highlighting the 2001-2002 school year was the celebration of the Charter Academy's first graduating class. In 2002-2003, the Academy opened its doors to students in grades 6 though 12. The Academy was founded by Bill Proser, who served as principal during the inaugural year. Dr. Proser retired from teaching high school English and economics in June 2017. His philosophy of education follows and serves as the foundation for the Academy's mission and vision.

"However different the experience of men on this planet, they are connected by a common link. They are animated by an inner drive that contends against the outside world for meaning. Above the sway of circumstance, the same shackles fetter both king and commoner to a single destiny called by the French philosophers the human condition. This mutual condition forms on our lips the great questions of life; universal questions about the existence and nature of truth, the essence of beauty and the search for justice. Education, at its best, informs us of the history of that quest for answers, examines its status and inspires us to set out once again on the road to that place where answers can be found. Elie Wiesel has said that it is the answers that divide us and the questions that unite us. Education concerns itself with those ideas that have the power to shape the very reality we experience. Ideas form the very Zeitgeist of the times. Who will argue that the ideas of Darwin or Marx, Freud or Einstein have had little effect on the twentieth century?

"The answers to the great questions do more than just color the world, they establish it. If this is true, those who teach take upon themselves the obligation of historical awareness. Each discipline of the academic world is built upon the ideas of those who asked these same old questions in a new way or replied to those questions with answers that disturbed their fellow creatures to such an extent, that a dialog was required. For the western world, that dialog is characterized by the conflict of opinion in debate. My philosophy of education centers on the attempt to stimulate in my students a respect for this conflict. The conflict is what Walter Lippmann called the "Indispensable Opposition." To respect another human being involves taking his ideas seriously enough to argue the point with him. Implied in this are most of the qualities inherent in the tradition of scholarship stretching back to the ancients. It is a tradition that values a thorough and detailed knowledge of the best that has been thought and said on a subject, a discernment of the crucial tenets of position, honesty, craftsmanship and precision with language. These abilities are the necessary tools of the would-be "scholar." Students who emerge from our classes with these skills are ready to take their place at the banquet table of ideas.

"Education, it seems to me, seeks to enlarge, enrich, and complicate our understanding of things. Perhaps, most importantly, good education mysteriously transmits a love of the subject that is the rightful inheritance of our students. It is a legacy of thought passed from one generation to the next by great teachers. It has been my good fortune to sit under such teachers. One of mine was a world geography teacher who posed a single great question for the semester. Why is Brazil so poor and Switzerland so rich? Although some of the answers our class suggested have faded, the excitement generated by the questions remains. It is my conclusion that the excitement corresponds to the difficulty of the question. Easy answers will not do, in the same way that slam dunking a basketball over the top of your little sister is not much fun. Challenge is inherently linked to achievement."

--Bill Proser, Founder